


Heaven's Light

by alphahelices



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphahelices/pseuds/alphahelices
Summary: That’s what prophets do, he’d thought with a calm heart. They die.





	Heaven's Light

Somehow, seeing her stumbling through the snow changed everything.

After months of seeing her as nothing but the Herald of Andraste, the vivid embodiment of everything he’d prayed to his whole life, something shifted. She had been on a pedestal in his mind, a holy throne, and despite every argument she made against the title—and every voice of reason in his head crying _she’s Dalish, she has her own gods_ —he could only think of her as some kind of deity enshrined in a haze of prophetic flame. He’d been afraid to touch her and to be alone with her for ages now. In Haven, the world was burning and the templars were turning to red demons and she pledged to stay behind and he didn’t even question it. _That’s what prophets do,_ he’d thought with a calm heart, _they die_. And she went to face the dragon and the elder one and Maker knows what other monsters were pouring over the mountains by now, and he’d turned away and led his soldiers and villagers and comrades to safety.

And now she was here, the risen dead, falling to her knees in the snow. Her eyelashes were crusted with ice, her glassy eyes stared without seeing, and finally something in his mind shattered and she wasn’t a prophet anymore. The scouts cried _the Herald_ , and running to her side his mind hummed nothing but _Lavellan_.

The others reached her first, lifting her to her feet, and he stood there in fractured awe and looked at her soggy knees and flickering eyelids. His heart was picking up pace now, beating like it had back in Kirkwall and the Tower and the guilt pounded away inside his chest, _she’s not a prophet and you left her to die_. The others thrummed with questions, _where are you hurt_ and _how did you make it_ and _what news of Haven_ , and the only word that fell out of his mouth was a soft and broken _Lavellan_?

Over the chaos, no one noticed it was the first time he’d called her by her name. There were too many hands to carry her and too many bodies to lean on, and he walked aside from the group on the way back to camp, puffing out unsteady breaths of cold air.

Later, after the healers came and went and Cassandra insisted _rest_ half a dozen times and Lavellan had finally been allowed out of the mage tent, she’d settled herself next to him at the fire with a steaming bowl of soup and a foaming mug. It felt strange, he realized, to sit next to her without imagining the heat of the flames of Andraste on his soul. She was only an elf.

It was a relief, in a way. She slurped her soup noisily, and he felt himself relaxing in a way he never had in her presence before. Every time the fire flared, he caught himself glancing sideways to see her face, briefly illuminated against the night. His eyes wandered to her high cheekbones, her pointed ears, and _how_ —he began to wonder— _how could he have ever imagined the wrath of the Maker judging him through those blue eyes?_

He was shaken, a moment later, by her hand placed on his. The hand of the Herald of Andraste, the hand that closed rifts and brought down would-be gods, and he was struck only by how small it was. Her fingertips were rough from her bowstring and warm from her bowl. She looked at him, and said _All right, Cullen?_ Her breath was bitter from the ales she favored, and her voice was thick from the remnants of hot soup in her throat. He met her gaze, and said _Fine, Lavellan,_ and he watched as the elf smiled gently and stood to leave.

Her footsteps crunched away across the snowy earth, heavy and graceless and mortal, and for the first time he started to miss her.


End file.
